> I'm surprised that this has stayed up as long as it has.
> ...
> Now, while my views fall in line with the message contained in this post, it still rubs me the wrong way...

Thank you for that thoughtful analysis. My reaction was similar to yours, but I understood it less. The piece rubs me wrong, too; at the same time, it *does* hit home. It's obvious that it's a shamelessly manipulative piece of writing; at the same time, it's about something no less dire than what is, frankly, a national emergency of sorts.

My views fall in line with its agenda, and I, too, was very bothered by the manipulative tactics it stoops to to make its point. But I couldn't articulate my feelings on it, as I have just now, until I read your post and discovered I felt very much the same way -- and, while I deliberated quite a while on whether to delete it or not before getting distracted by actual work and forgetting to revisit it, I couldn't bring myself to delete something out of a kneejerk reaction to a confused emotional response that I couldn't articulate even to myself.

Now that I've done that, I'll probably delete this thread in a day or so.

Den-Kara, don't feel bad. You have every right to be moved by that piece, and perhaps should be. Messages like these -- ones we might agree with and ones we might not -- exist, whether we like it or not, and learning to cope with such visceral arguments is perhaps as important an issue as the subjects they undertake. I think it's important we learn how to deal with them, how to retain the ability to think about them rationally after the fact, and I think Ferrick's post was very helpful in keeping oneself objective in the face of manipulative persuasive tactics while not altogether dismissing the issues at hand based purely on their mode of delivery.

Further discussion on the topic of emotional manipulation is welcomed; if this thread generates enough useful discussion on that, I'll keep it around. Otherwise, I'll can it soon.